The Neapolitan Novels

by Elena Ferrante

  “No, stay a little longer.”

  Lila sat down again.

  “He’s not always like that.”

  “He’s a very handsome child. Right, Gennaro, you’re a good boy?”

  “He isn’t good, he isn’t at all good. But he’s clever. Even though he’s little, he can read and write all the letters, capitals and small. What do you say, Gennà, do you want to show the professor how you read?”

  She picked up a magazine from a beautiful glass table, pointed to a word at random on the cover, and said: Go on, read. Gennaro refused. Lila gave him a pat on the shoulder, repeated in a threatening tone: Read, Gennà. The child reluctantly deciphered, d-e-s-t, then he broke off, staring angrily at Marco’s little car. Marco hugged it to his chest, gave a small smile, and read confidently: destinazione.

  Lila was disappointed, she darkened, she looked at Galiani’s grandson with annoyance.

  “He reads well.”

  “Because I devote a lot of time to him. His parents are always out.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Three and a half.”

  “He seems older.”

  “Yes, he’s sturdy. How old is your son?”

  “He’s five,” Lila admitted reluctantly.

  The professor caressed Gennaro, and said to him:

  “Mamma made you read a difficult word, but you’re a clever boy, I can see that you know how to read.”

  Just then there was a commotion, the door to the stairs opened and closed, the sound of footsteps scurrying through the house, male voices, female voices. Here are my children, Professor Galiani said, and called out: Nadia. But it wasn’t Nadia who came into the room; instead a thin, very pale, very blond girl, with eyes of a blue so blue that it looked fake, burst in noisily. The girl opened wide her arms and cried to Marco: Who’s going to give his mamma a kiss? The child ran to her and she embraced him, kissed him, followed by Armando, Professor Galiani’s son. Lila remembered him, too, immediately, and looked at him as he practically tore Marco from his mother’s arms, crying: Immediately, at least thirty kisses for papa. Marco began to kiss his father on the cheek, counting: One, two, three, four.

  “Nadia,” Professor Galiani called again in a suddenly irritated tone, “are you deaf? Come, there’s someone here to see you.”

  Nadia finally looked into the room. Behind her was Pasquale.

  37.

  Lila’s bitterness exploded again. So Pasquale, when work was over, rushed to the house of those people, amid mothers and fathers and grandmothers and aunts and happy babies, all affectionate, all well educated, all so broad-minded that they welcomed him as one of them, although he was a construction worker and still bore the dirty traces of his job?

  Nadia embraced her in her emotional way. Lucky you’re here, she said, leave the child with my mother, we have to talk. Lila replied aggressively that yes, they had to talk, right away, that’s why she was there. And since she said emphatically that she had only a minute, Pasquale offered to take her home in the car. So they left the living room, the children, the grandmother, and met—also Armando, also the blond girl, whose name was Isabella—in Nadia’s room, a large room with a bed, a desk, shelves full of books, posters showing singers, films, and revolutionary struggles that Lila knew little about. There were three other young men, two whom she had never seen, and Dario, banged up from the beating he’d had, sprawled on Nadia’s bed with his shoes on the pink quilt. All three were smoking, the room was full of smoke. Lila didn’t wait, she didn’t even respond to Dario’s greeting. She said that they had got her in trouble, that their lack of consideration had put her at risk of being fired, that the pamphlet had caused an uproar, that they shouldn’t come to the gate anymore, that because of them the fascists had showed up and everyone was now angry with both the reds and the blacks. She hissed at Dario: As for you, if you don’t know how to fight stay home, you know they could kill you? Pasquale tried to interrupt her a few times, but she cut him off contemptuously, as if his mere presence in that house were a betrayal. The others instead listened in silence. Only when Lila had finished, did Armando speak. He had his mother’s delicate features, and thick black eyebrows; the violet trace of his carefully shaved beard rose to his cheekbones, and he spoke in a warm, thick voice. He introduced himself, he said that he was very happy to meet her, that he regretted he hadn’t been there when she spoke at the meeting, that, however, what she had told them they had discussed among themselves and since they had considered it an important contribution they had decided to put everything in writing. Don’t worry, he concluded calmly, we’ll support you and your comrades in every way.

  Lila coughed, the smoke in the room irritated her throat.

  “You should have informed me.”

  “It’s true, but there wasn’t time.”

  “If you really want the time you find it.”

  “We are few and our initiatives are more every day.”

  “What work do you do?”

  “In what sense?”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  “Like your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “And at this moment are you risking your job? Could you end up in the street at any moment along with your son?”

  Armando shook his head unhappily and said:

  “Competing for who is risking the most is wrong, Lina.”

  And Pasquale:

  “He’s been arrested twice and I have eight charges against me. Nobody here risks more or less than anyone else.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “No,” said Nadia, “we’re all in the front lines and ready to assume our responsibilities.”

  Then Lila, forgetting that she was in someone else’s house, cried:

  “So if I should lose my job, I’ll come and live here, you’ll feed me, you’ll assume responsibility for my life?”

  Nadia answered placidly:

  “If you like, yes.”

  Four words only. Lila understood that it wasn’t a joke, that Nadia was serious, that even if Bruno Soccavo fired his entire work force she, with that sickly-sweet voice of hers, would give the same senseless answer. She claimed that she was in the service of the workers, and yet, from her room in a house full of books and with a view of the sea, she wanted to command you, she wanted to tell you what you should do with your work, she decided for you, she had the solution ready even if you ended up in the street. I—it was on the tip of Lila’s tongue—if I want, can smash everything much better than you: I don’t need you to tell me, in that sanctimonious tone, how I should think, what I should do. But she restrained herself, and said abruptly to Pasquale:

  “I’m in a hurry, are you going to take me or are you staying here?”

  Silence. Pasquale glanced at Nadia, muttered, I’ll take you, and Lila started to leave the room, without saying goodbye. The girl rushed to lead the way, saying to her how unacceptable it was to work in the conditions that Lila herself had described so well, how urgent it was to kindle the spark of the struggle, and other phrases like that. Don’t pull back, she urged, finally, before they went into the living room. But she got no response.

  Professor Galiani, sitting in the armchair, was reading, a frown on her face. When she looked up she spoke to Lila, ignoring her daughter, ignoring Pasquale, who had just arrived, embarrassed.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes, it’s late. Let’s go, Gennaro, leave Marco his car and put your coat on.”

  Professor Galiani smiled at her grandson, who was pouting.

  “Marco gave it to him.”

  Lila narrowed her eyes, reduced them to cracks.

  “You’re all so generous in this house, thank you.”

  The professor watched as she struggled with her son to get his coat on.

  “May I ask you s
omething?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What did you study?”

  The question seemed to irritate Nadia, who broke in:

  “Mamma, Lina has to go.”

  For the first time Lila noticed some nervousness in the child’s voice, and it pleased her.

  “Will you let me have two words?” Professor Galiani snapped, in a tone no less nervous. Then she repeated to Lila, but kindly: “What did you study?”

  “Nothing.”

  “To hear you speak—and shout—it doesn’t seem so.”

  “It’s true, I stopped after fifth grade.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t have the ability.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Greco had it, I didn’t.”

  Professor Galiani shook her head in a sign of disagreement, and said:

  “If you had studied you would have been as successful as Greco.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “You professors insist so much on education because that’s how you earn a living, but studying is of no use, it doesn’t even improve you—in fact it makes you even more wicked.”

  “Has Elena become more wicked?”

  “No, not her.”

  “Why not?”

  Lila stuck the wool cap on her son’s head. “We made a pact when we were children: I’m the wicked one.”

  38.

  In the car she got mad at Pasquale (Have you become the servant of those people?) and he let her vent. Only when it seemed to him that she had come to the end of her recriminations did he start off with his political formulas: the condition of workers in the South, the condition of slavery in which they lived, the permanent blackmail, the weakness if not absence of unions, the need to force situations and reach the point of struggle. Lina, he said in dialect, his tone heartfelt, you’re afraid of losing the few cents they give you and you’re right, Gennaro has to grow up. But I know that you are a true comrade, I know that you understand: here we workers have never even been within the regular wage scales, we’re outside all the rules, we’re less than zero. So, it’s blasphemy to say: leave me alone, I have my own problems and I want to mind my own business. Each of us, in the place assigned to us, has to do what he can.

  Lila was exhausted; fortunately Gennaro was sleeping on the back seat with the little car clutched in his right hand. Pasquale’s speech came to her in waves. Every so often the beautiful apartment on Corso Vittorio Emanuele came into her mind, along with the professor and Armando and Isabella and Nino, who had gone off to find a wife somewhere of Nadia’s type, and Marco, who was three and could read much better than her son. What a useless struggle to make Gennaro become smart. The child was already losing, he was being pulled back and she couldn’t hold on to him. When they reached the house and she saw that she had to invite Pasquale in she said: I don’t know what Enzo’s made, he’s a terrible cook, maybe you don’t feel like it, and hoped he would leave. But he answered: I’ll stay ten minutes, then go, so she touched his arm with her fingertips and murmured:

  “Don’t tell him anything.”

  “Anything about what?”

  “About the fascists. If he knows, he’ll go and beat up Gino tonight.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “Ah.”

  “That’s the way it is.”

  “Remember that Enzo knows better than you and me what needs to be done.”

  “Yes, but don’t say anything to him just the same.”

  Pasquale agreed with a scowl. He picked up Gennaro, who wouldn’t wake up, and carried him up the stairs, followed by Lila, who was mumbling unhappily: What a day, I’m dead tired, you and your friends have got me in huge trouble. They told Enzo that they had gone to Nadia’s house for a meeting, and Pasquale gave him no chance to ask questions, he talked without stopping until midnight. He said that Naples, like the whole world, was churning with new life, he praised Armando, who, good doctor that he was, instead of thinking of his career treated the poor for nothing, he took care of the children in the Quartieri and with Nadia and Isabella was involved in countless projects that served the people—a nursery school, a clinic. He said that no one was alone any longer, comrades helped comrades, the city was going through a wonderful time. You two, he said, shouldn’t stay shut up here in the house, you should go out, we should be together more. And finally he announced that he was finished with the Communist Party: too many ugly things, too many compromises, national and international, he couldn’t stand that dreariness anymore. Enzo was deeply disturbed by his decision, they argued about it for a long time: the party is the party, no, yes, no, enough with the politics of stabilization, we need to attack the institutional structures of the system. Lila quickly became bored, and she went to put Gennaro to bed—he was sleepy, whining as he ate his supper—and didn’t return.

  But she stayed awake even when Pasquale left and the evidence of Enzo’s presence in the house had been extinguished. She took her temperature, it was 100. She recalled the moment when Gennaro had struggled to read. What sort of word had she put in front of him: destination. Certainly it was a word that Gennaro had never heard. It’s not enough to know the alphabet, she thought, there are so many difficulties. If Nino had had him with Nadia, that child would have had a completely different destiny. She felt she was the wrong mother. And yet I wanted him, she thought, it was with Stefano that I didn’t want children, with Nino yes. She had truly loved Nino. She had desired him deeply, she had desired to please him and for his pleasure had done willingly everything that with her husband she had had to do by force, overcoming disgust, in order not to be killed. But she had never felt what it was said she was supposed to feel when she was penetrated, that she was sure of, and not only with Stefano but also with Nino. Males were so attached to their penis, they were so proud of it, and they were convinced that you should be even more attached to it than they were. Even Gennaro was always playing with his; sometimes it was embarrassing how much he jiggled it in his hands, how much he pulled it. Lila was afraid he would hurt himself; and even to wash it, or get him to pee, she had had to make an effort, get used to it. Enzo was so discreet, never in his underwear in the house, never a vulgar word. For that reason she felt an intense affection for him, and was grateful to him for his devoted wait in the other room, which had never been interrupted by a wrong move. The control he exercised over things and himself seemed to her the only consolation. But then a sense of guilt emerged: what consoled her surely made him suffer. And the thought that Enzo was suffering because of her was added to all the terrible things of that day. Events and conversations whirled chaotically in her head for a long time. Tones of voice, single words. How should she act the next day in the factory? Was there really all that fervor in Naples and the world, or were Pasquale and Nadia and Armando imagining it to allay their anxieties, out of boredom, to give themselves courage? Should she trust them, with the risk of becoming captive to fantasies? Or was it better to look for Bruno again to get her out of trouble? But would it really be any use trying to placate him, with the risk that he might jump on her again? Would it help to give in to the abuses of Filippo and the supervisors? She didn’t make much progress. In the end, in a waking sleep, she landed on an old principle that we two had assimilated since we were little. It seemed to her that to save herself, to save Gennaro, she had to intimidate those who wished to intimidate her, she had to inspire fear in those who wished to make her fear. She fell asleep with the intention of doing harm, to Nadia by showing her that she was just a girl from a good family, all sugary chatter, to Soccavo by ruining the pleasure he got in sniffing salamis and women in the drying room.

  39.

  She woke at five in the morning, in a sweat; she no longer had a fever. At the factory gate she found not the students but the fascists. Same
automobiles, same faces as the day before: they were shouting slogans, handing out leaflets. Lila felt that more violence was planned and she walked with her head down, hands in pockets, hoping to get into the factory before the fighting started. But Gino appeared in front of her.

  “You still know how to read?” he asked in dialect, holding out a leaflet. Keeping her hands in her pockets, she replied:

  “I do, yes, but when did you learn?”

  Then she tried to go by, in vain. Gino obstructed her, he jammed the leaflet into her pocket with a gesture so violent that he scratched her hand with his nail. Lila crumpled it up calmly.

  “It’s not even good for wiping your ass,” she said and threw it away.

  “Pick it up,” the pharmacist’s son ordered her, grabbing her by the arm. “Pick it up now and you listen to me: yesterday afternoon I asked that cuckold your husband for permission to beat you up and he said yes.”

  Lila looked him straight in the eye:

  “You went to ask my husband for permission to beat me up? Let go of my arm right now, you shit.”

  At that moment Edo arrived, and instead of pretending not to notice, as was to be expected, he stopped.

  “Is he bothering you, Cerù?”

  It was an instant. Gino punched him in the face, Edo ended up on the ground. Lila’s heart jumped to her throat, and everything began to speed up. She picked up a rock and gripping it solidly struck the pharmacist’s son right in the chest. There was a long moment. While Gino shoved her back against a light pole, while Edo tried to get up, another car appeared on the unpaved road, raising dust. Lila recognized Pasquale’s broken-down car. Here, she thought, Armando listened to me, maybe Nadia, too, they’re well-brought-up people, but Pasquale couldn’t resist, he’s coming to make war. In fact the doors opened, and five men got out, including him. They were men from the construction sites, carrying knotty clubs, and they began hitting the fascists with a methodical ferocity; they didn’t get angry, they planted a single, precise blow intended to knock down the adversary. Lila immediately saw that Pasquale was heading toward Gino, and since Gino was still a few steps away from her she grabbed one of his arms with both hands and said, laughing: You’d better go or they’ll kill you. But he didn’t go; rather, he pushed her away again and rushed at Pasquale. Lila helped Edo get up, and tried to drag him into the courtyard, but it was difficult; he was heavy, and he was writhing, shouting insults, bleeding. He calmed down a little only when he saw Pasquale hit Gino with his stick and knock him to the ground. The confusion increased: debris the men picked up along the side of the street flew like bullets, men were spitting and screaming insults. Pasquale, leaving Gino unconscious, had rushed into the courtyard, with a man wearing only an undershirt and loose blue pants streaked with cement. Both were now bludgeoning Filippo’s booth; he was locked inside, terrorized. Shouting obscenities, they smashed the windows, while the wail of a police siren grew louder. Lila noticed yet again the anxious pleasure of violence. Yes, she thought, you have to strike fear into those who wish to strike fear into you, there is no other way, blow for blow, what you take from me I take back, what you do to me I do to you. But while Pasquale and his people were getting back in the car, while the fascists did the same, carrying off Gino bodily, while the police siren got closer, she felt, terrified, that her heart was becoming like the too tightly wound spring of a toy, and she knew that she had to find a place to sit down as soon as possible. Once she was inside, she collapsed in the hallway, her back against the wall, and tried to calm down. Teresa, the large woman in her forties who worked in the gutting room, was looking after Edo, wiping the blood off his face, and she teased Lila.